Information About

Gaafar Nimeiry




In 1952 Nimeiry graduated from the Sudan Military College, where he was greatly influenced by the ideas of Gamal Abdel Nasser 's Free Officers Movement , which gained power in Egypt that same year. In 1966 Nimeiry graduated from the United States Army Command College in Fort Leavenworth , Kansas . Three years later he helped lead a military coup of the civilian government of Ismail Al-Azhari , shortly after which he was named Prime Minister of Sudan. He used his position to enact a number of Socialist and Pan-Arabist reforms.

Nimeiry successfully weathered a coup attempt by Sadiq Al-Mahdi in 1970, and in 1971 was briefly removed from power by a Communist coup, before being restored. Later in 1971 he was elected President, and succeeded in ending the 17-year civil war between north and south Sudan the next year with the Addis Ababa Agreement .

In 1981 Nimeiry, still President of Sudan, began a dramatic shift toward Islamist political governance. In 1983 he imposed Sharia , or Islamic law, throughout the country. In violation of the Addis Ababa Agreement he dissolved the southern Sudanese government, thereby prompting a renewal of the civil war. In 1985 Nimeiry authorised the execution of the peaceful political dissident and Islamic reformist Mahmoud Mohamed Taha after Taha--who was first accused of religious sedition in the 1960s when Sudan's President was Ismail Al-Azhari -- was declared an apostate by a Sudanese court. Shortly thereafter Nimeiry was overthrown in a military coup.

Nimeiry lived in exile in Egypt from 1985 to 1999, after which he returned to Sudan. Today he is a member of the National Congress Party .


TIMELINE


  • , as the son of a postman.





  • and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). He starts a campaign aiming at reforming Sudan 's economy through nationalization of banks and industries as well as some land reforms.


  • from Libya is put down.



  • coup, but soon returns to power.

  • ---September: Nimeiri wins a referendum with 98.6% of the votes. He now starts a more Western-friendly policy, where banks were returned to private ownership and foreign investment was encouraged as evidenced by a number of bilateral investment treaties that are signed.


  • , autonomy is granted to the non-Muslim southern region of Sudan , which brought peace and stability to the region which had witnessed civil war since 1955 , before Sudan's independence.


  • is awarded concessions in the southern and middle parts of the Red Sea and carries out aero-magnetic and gravity surveys. Dry gas and condensate is discovered in two wells.

  • --- discovers the Suakin Gas Field .

  • --- makes its first oil discovery in Abu Jabra #1, west of Muglad, where an 8 million barrels reserve and a 1,000 barrels per day (b/d) production rate are estimated.

  • --- 1982 , Chevron drills 22 discovery, appraisal and production wells. Chevron estimated a total oil reserve of 593 million barrels and a production rate of 3,600 b/d.


  • 1978 18 July - 12 July 1979 : Nimeiry elected Chairman of the Organization of African Unity.


  • .


  • , for all of Sudan . The administrative boundaries of the south are also reformed. In the south, the civil war restarts.


  • , a bloodless military coup led by his defence minister ousts him from power.


  • .



  • merges with the ruling National Congress Party of Sudan. The National Congress Party negotiated an end to Sudan's civil war that was signed in a Comprehensive Peace Agreement on January 9th 2005.



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